Massive Attack live in Toronto, Oct. 6, 2006

I saw Massive Attack in concert last night at The Carlu in Toronto. It was my first opportunity to see them live. The venue was quite unique -- a refurished concert hall on the 7th floor of a building. Very classy.

I was with three other friends and we stood quite far to the back, but the view wasn't altogether that bad. I pretty much agree with everything in this concert review from the Toronto Star.

There's couple of things I'd like to add to the review.

First, the band hit a turning point afer performing "Angel" which was just past the half-way point. They started to show real intensity after that. The outro piece, "Group Four," was mind bending.

Second, the monitors were ridiculously quiet. You could actually hear the murmur of the crowd above the audio. Unreal. Frustrated audience members were shouting "turn it up!" For a show like this, considering that it's a band that records with such sonic excellence, it was a complete joke. Worse, the vocals were sibilant heavy (in and around the 6K range) and muffled like crazy. There were times when the vocals were so buried in the mix that I had to laugh in disbelief. Aside from that, the mixing of the rhythm section was spot-on and the guitar tone was outstanding.

Here's a slide-show of photographs I took at the show.

Videos ("Angel" and "Black Milk"):